


Soulmate

by Wrathofscribbles



Series: Soulmate AUs [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-15 09:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19611358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: It's said when you meet your soulmate, you see the world in colour.





	Soulmate

**Author's Note:**

> **Big bold reminder that FFVII and its content are property of Square Enix.** I just play around in the sandpit they've created and scream about my faves.
> 
> I was fooling around with an OTP prompt generator and the "see the world in colour" AU was spit out for these two. Of course I had to sink my teeth into it.

He's heard of the - the phenomenon. Of course he has, _any_ Turk has. _Can you see the world in colour? No, okay, tell us if you do, then._ Just one of the few reasons why Turks had _partners_. Spies to keep an eye on one another, to identify the culprit if one half of the duo suddenly saw the world in a different light.

It had never happened Vincent, not even with Lucrecia, the world remaining varying shades of black and white and that smudged grey right in the middle, according to his eyes. His _red_ eyes, though he never bothered reporting Veld for that information. They both knew the company came first. It was better that way - loyalty left untested was loyalty left alone, not called into question. He'd never have to hold a gun to his soulmate's forehead and pull the trigger if he didn't have one in the first place.

No soulmate suited him just fine, and it stayed that way for decades. Until he looked in the mirror one day, still wearing Chaos's skin, and found pale yellow eyes staring back at him, his horror theirs.

_No,_ rumbled the most deadly of his demons, _it cannot be._ And that was the last Vincent heard from him until the DeepGround incident, until Omega, until Chaos saved his life, at the cost of the WEAPON's own.

_Live, Vincent. Live and be free._

* * *

He returns to the cave where Chaos initially made the full weight of his presence known, his fury at Lucrecia's desecration of his resting place slamming Vincent to his knees. He doesn't _really_ expect the WEAPON to be there but the bitter taste of disappointment confirms there was a seed of hope somewhere, withering away. Foolish, most definitely, and utterly confusing.

_Why do I care? There is nothing to miss._

The void within marking Chaos's former place says otherwise, and in the cave's silence he can almost imagine the barbed curl of the WEAPON's amusement branding him a liar.

He leaves the following morning, unwilling to linger, bound for Kalm and a too-long journey with the loss of his borrowed flight. And maybe it's exhaustion, or maybe it's the chilling lack of Lifestream, but when he chances one last glance at Lucrecia's crystal prison it doesn't seem as radiant as... as before. It doesn't _sing_ , doesn't call him back. Vincent laughs at himself then, shaking his head as he leaves. Of course it keeps its silence - he was never the one it sought.

The world is... murkier outside, without Chaos's awareness bleeding through his senses and lending focus to his vision. As if a fog blurs the edges of everything between outstretched fingers and the horizon. It's... bothersome, but a minor inconvenience he can teach himself to disregard. He'll adapt to it. Quite unlike the _weakness_ in his limbs, his soul, torn and fragile and at the mercy of his remaining residents and yet - they, too, are diminished. As if Chaos's strength had carried them all. Of course it did. Bloody antagonistic bastard.

* * *

Vincent visits the church first. Holy ground, blessed and tended by the last Ancient. His blood doesn't burn when he dips his hands in the water. His skin doesn't blister when he kneels amongst the flowers. No presence rattles around in his bones, demanding without begging that he _move_. There is no corruption from the WEAPON left, and Vincent knows for certainty in that moment. He is alone. He moves on, aware others are waiting on him.

His eyes don't gleam red in his reflection, either, when he turns the glass over and over in his hand, quiet and partially removed from the party. Unwilling to celebrate when something is so amiss. They're... pink? Washed out. Faded.

_You're losing your Sight,_ Galian murmurs in his head and Vincent laughs, devoid of humour and very much dead. Of course he's losing the Sight - it follows his soulmate's path to the Beyond. And, perhaps the worst of all, Vincent finds himself missing it, that inhuman creature overlapping his consciousness, as light and heavy as the wings stripped from his back.

_How is this freedom, Chaos? What have you done?_

* * *

"What do you mean you can't see colour anymore?"

"Wait, that can happen?"

"How?"

"I thought you said you weren't injured in that blast, Vincent."

"You mean you can't tell me what polka dots I'm wearing? You traitor!"

They don't understand they don't understand they don't _understand_ , of course they don't, they haven't found and lost a soulmate. He doesn't, either. How can he miss an entity he shared a body with, who went radio silent on him for _years_?

"You had a soulmate?"

_Had_. Past tense, and oh but that aches worse than old wounds in Shiva's chill, and he opens his mouth on a flinch to say - something. Something calm, locking away the instinctive howl, the snap of denial, Marlene didn't mean anything by it except a child's curiosity.

" _Has_ a soulmate, little one."

And everything just - stops.

That _voice_. He knows it. He _knows_ it, even as it catches in odd places, the accent foreign, the deep growl of it sending a shiver down his spine. He _knows_ that voice. They do, too, alert and awake behind his eyes.

It can't be, but it is. Panic as his comrades grab for weapons left behind and materia out of use, and Vincent swivels on jelly legs to face the entity looming at the entrance door, blotting out all sight of the street outside. The eyes aren't pale yellow at all, but amber. Bright and blazing as the noonday sun and focused wholly, solely on him.

"Chaos."

He's... taller. No longer shackled by the limits of a shared body. Taller and _broader_ , sturdy where Vincent isn't, grounded and solid and yet - and yet his head still snaps aside when the punch connects and pain screams through Vincent's knuckles and -

Chaos bleeds. He _bleeds_. From a split in his lip, smeared on the thumb he passes over the wound to test the severity of it, there and gone when he presses his tongue to it.

Blood. Red blood.

"Like your eyes," Chaos says, growls, all wicked amusement he hasn't heard in so long and he burns, as furious as he's ever been, rocks forward for another blow only for Chaos to catch his fist in his palm. Bare, pale skin, scars overlapping across his knuckles. Warm. Alive. He's _alive_. How?

"Hello to you, too, Vincent."

"You _bastard_."


End file.
